Welcome to this week’s PlayStation Plus update, where we’re excited to bring news that the Guardians of Middle Earth MOBA greatness will be coming free to PS3 for PS Plus members! If you’ve never tried this unique genre that’s taking the gaming community by storm, give Guardians of Middle Earth a download and see what all the excitement is about. While you’re at it, check out a handful of discounts on some pretty amazing games you may have missed out on for both PS3 and PS Vita.

Friendly reminder: The deal is on through March 4th: purchase a one-year membership of PS Plus and get three bonus months free. Current members can stack this value on to their existing membership as well. Learn more about the offer here, or click the link below to go to the SEN online store.

Don’t have PlayStation Plus, or just want to add more time to your existing membership? Go to the PlayStation Store on your PS3 or PS Vita or click here to get access via the Sony Entertainment Network online store.

February 5th PlayStation Plus Update

Guardians of Middle Earth (PS3)

Free for PS Plus members (Original Price: $14.99)

Take up arms in the clash over Middle-earth with the most powerful heroes from the greatest fantasy epic of all time. Form alliances with and against friends and jump into the wildly popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) gameplay. With 20 iconic guardians from Middle-earth, and new guardians coming all the time, it’s the perfect time to get lost in the multiplayer fray in epic 5 versus 5 battles.

Karateka (PS3)

A beautifully simple premise with a fun pick up and play fighting system, Karateka blends old school gameplay charm with fluid combat animations and gorgeous backdrops and music to provide an amazing adventure with a ton of replay value. Are you skilled enough to rescue Princess Mariko with the fighting finesse of her True Love? Or will you need the power of the burly brute to topple the opposition? For more on Karateka, check out PS.Blog’s post from Assistant Producer Heather d’Evelyn.

Big Sky Infinity (PS3 and PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)

Big Sky Infinity is a lightning-fast, randomly-generated game that adapts to how you play; which means, it’s never the same game twice. You pilot a spaceship that’s flying straight into an alien armada. The further you progress, the harder it gets, with giant bosses, streams of enemies, and unique events that shift the gameplay to keep you on your toes. It’s Cross Buy enabled, so this purchase will get you a version to play on both your PS Vita and PS3. Check out more Big Sky Infinity from the game’s director James Whitehead.

Knytt Underground (PS3 and PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)

Knytt Underground tells a quirky and strange tale that’s set in the future, hundreds of years after the humans disappeared from the planet. Sprites, fairies and various other lifeforms roam tunnels in the underground. With a curiousity about their origin and the meaning of life, they strike out to find those answers they try to understand the ones who had obviously figured it out: the humans. It’s a beautiful adventure with a vast environment to explore and story driven quests that will keep you hooked. Read more about Knytt Underground in the PS Blog’s post featuring the Creative Director Nicklas Nygren.

Thanks for reading this week’s update. As usual, you can join the PlayStation community over on the PlayStation Community Forums in the PS Plus space to continue chatting about PS Plus, or find other PlayStation topics to discuss, or even start one yourself. See you in the comments!

Free games no matter you like it or not are still free so, it is fine with me. I got plus because I want discounts for big title games like Last of Us, God of War Ascension, Tomb Raider and so on. So, I am hoping to have plus discounts for those games. :D Fingers crossed

Bummer, bought Knytt not that long ago. Oh well, Big Sky is a game I meant to get. Woot. And I am happy with the free game. We get what we get. Europe publishers clearly want to play ball with big stuff more than NA publishers do.

Great update team – I’m very happy to try out Guardians of Middle Earth. I’m tempted to try Big Sky for Vita but I’m still enjoying Ninja Gaiden immensely (I never got into the Ninja games so double thanks on that).

With the games I’ve bought, and the free games from Plus I literally can’t keep up. But you gotta love trying something I wouldn’t have bought (like Ninja Gaiden) and finding it enjoyable. Liking Darksiders too and I haven’t even tried BioShock 2 from last year yet!

My PS+ subscription ends today, definitely not renewing. The fact the EU gets such superior AAA games, and we’re getting bargain bin stuff just doesn’t seem right. I get that there are different licensing rights in different territories, but there’s got to be a work around to get us comparable games.

Wow, I just have to cringe when I read these comments. The immaturity/stupidity/entitlement is absolutely unbearable.

Pretty decent update, I’ll admit I’m not dying to play the LotR MOBA. But it’s one of about 60 free games we get each year. Those of you who are “disappointed” with PS+ and don’t think it’s worth the money, you’re absolutely insane. Please never subscribe again and just hush about PS+.

And for what is worth, I really don’t mind about having always a free game as much as I’d love to have some real nice Plus discounts for newer games, both Vita and PS3. I’d like discounts for Ridge Racer Vita, Resistance, LBP Vita, or on recent PSN games or digital releases. Here’s a thought: why not settle a 25% permanent discount for PSN games and 15% for Digital for Plus members? You could prize us with bigger discounts on selected titles every week, but being a Plus member would give me this advantage of permanently buy games at 15-25% off. It’s just an idea. Plus is a premium service. And it’s a pain in the @ss to come back week after week to see if a game you want to try has finally got into the discount bay, just to see what we got this week. It’s frustrating. I think if they had a real benefit from plus other than getting free stuff, I’d be more satisfied and would be buying a lot more games.

there’s any way to unsubcribe from psn+? I still have 10 months left,but dont feel like using it anymore,crap service.I just bought ps3+ plus and got dissapointed with psn+.People that defend sony dont understand the fact that we’re mad because EU gets alot better games than we do simple as that.

@Dregin
Yep, u are right. From now on ur ars* is ignored ! :) hmmm feeling much better already. But just to let u know I am upset cuz can’t stand ppl like u who gets upset on the complainers when its sony’s responsibility to give answers to them.

+1 with #50. But just in case no one wants to scroll back into page one, i´ll just paste it here:

+ mihaibara on February 4th, 2013 at 7:28 am said:
I am starting to regret my Plus subscription ending in November 2014. I won’t compare the US offer with the EU one, what I really don’t understand is the reason behind giving PS+ users some cheap nobody-wants-to-play games like Foosball or even Guardians of Middle Earth. It’s like Sony ran out of fuel and now, instead gas, they are putting mud in the fuel tank just to fill the weekly free game slot.

Another thing that almost drives me crazy is Morgan’s childish enthusiasm: another great game, an amazing offer, something you can’t afford to miss, the whole world is going to stop and wonder at this week’s plus updates and in the end: Foosball 2012 or another 8-bit game. Come on, some of your Plus members are way over 14 years old and those PR gimmicks sound absolutely pathetic. Most of us are Plus members because we love video games and know a thing or two about video games, or saying that a mediocre game at best is an amazing offer is like insulting our intelligence.

nothing for me..
those waiting for Sleeping Dogs with a suitable PC should’ve just bought it a couple weeks ago when it was on Steam sale for $10… i did, awesome game.. just need a better gamepad though, its not a game suited for playing with mouse/keyboard…

wondering when we will get new tables for Pinball Arcade and/or Zen 2..???

I’m def getting big sky infinity and still have to play through ninja gaiden sigma plus which we just got last week and I got unit 13 from the holiday sales as well still haven’t touched that. Oh and gravity rush and uncharted golden abyss…..BACKLOG thank you PS+ Killzone 3 multiplayer for 7 bucks over the holidays, I think I’ve gotten some good deals out of this subscription if you don’t enjoy it then that’s because of your personal tastes you can’t always get big name games for free.

Although its not a bad update , i’d rather see a big retail title be added to the ps+ line up. Europe got 2 retail games this month , so i really hope we get something along those lines aswell. Hopefully we will also get Sleeping Dogs , although the chances of that happening seem pretty slim at this point..

all I can say about the complainers today is wow….anyways, good update, can’t wait to try it out. as for people complaining about Fooseball still, just download it and actually try it out before you continue complaining. yes, it’s not the most graphically enhanced game, yes, it’s Fooseball, but it’s actually challenging, addictive and fun. Even I’m not a huge Fooseball guy, but this was a good game for sure, enough that I played it on Thursday last week while waiting for the wife in the dentist office.

for those complaining about vita getting 1 free game a month, while you and your PS3 still are receiving 3 free games per month like PS+ has done since its inception in 2010, stop whining and buy a Vita if you REALLY want that 4th game a month… not worth the cost? then stop whining! Vita is not taking away from you if you’re still getting 3 games a month like before! don’t like the games? don’t sub and save your money to buy the games you DO want. time for a new PS Community rule: if you don’t like it, don’t buy it, don’t play it, and don’t complain about it if you do.

I have a question …it’s unrelated and off topic…do you have any idea what happened to the PS Blogcast this past week, or was it just outright forgotten about? it was the 1st time in 60 weeks they missed a show, and seems like it was cancelled/forgot to be posted last week. any answers regarding this? Just seems kinda hard to forget to do something you’ve done for 60 weeks prior…it’d be like walking your dog everyday for a year, then forgetting you own one on the day after new years lol are we gonna get twice the show this week? the Blogcast is a great way to stay up-to-date on whats being released soon, so it’d be great if we can finally get episode 61 from last week, or if this weeks episode 62 will be like UFC, where they skipped 151 for 152?

i have been a plus member for over year now what happened to giving away classic game sets like spyro and sphyon fillter i have been dissapointed for the last 6 months now when will we get a decent game please give us content in equal value to the other countries plus subscibers cause this is making me not want to renew when my year is up

Worst update in the entire history of PS+.
This is more of a PSN game, so feel ripped off since it’s the beginning of a new month.
I have a ton of SONY products so this feels bad. What about some NFL avatars while
we wait on a better update?

I agree with most of the comments here. This was one of the worst updates in a while. People are upset between the differences between the US and EU. It took us months to get darksiders, we still haven’t gotten red dead, and EU gets sleeping dogs this month. This lord of the rings game caters to a small group of gamers, and most have already purchased this game when it was on sale.
Hustle Kings would have been a much better choice and it’s 5 dollars cheaper on the PSN.

@joegoodsnake because his reasoning/complaint was not logical. I understand saying you’re disappointed that’s fine but don’t like sony came to your house with a gun and said “sign up for plus or else!” it’s complaints like that that piss me off because they don’t hold any water or make any sense. If you aren’t happy with plus just stop using it and go buy the games you want like everyone else does.

you do realize you could change your info on your account to a different region. like EU, and and it will change your account type to the region….however, you would cancel your NA Plus in the process, as Plus content is locked to accounts in 2 ways: user account & region type.

by your standards, Warner Bros, Sony, Universal, etc are also forcing you to purchase NA content instead of EU content, as DVD’s/BluRay discs are also encoded to their region. sure, you can purchase region-free dvd players, but they’re trickier to find…..but technically no one FORCED you to purchase the NA Plus like you state….you could simply move to EU if you want EU Plus so badly….after all, by your standards, no one is not forcing you to stay in NA, you do have the right to move to another continent, people do it all the time for work and a better life.

I’ve been a plus member since ‘ Summer ’11 but I find this update kinda lacking. I may buy Big Sky Infinitie and Kyntt but I heard GoME wasn’t all that great for a moba style game. Please bring back the free PS One games! My vita would greatly appreciate it.

Why is there such a gigantic discrepancy in the value being offered between NA and EU?

Why don’t you speak with your superiors and at least put out some PR to calm the masses? Explain why you are treating the two regions with such drastic differences in quality, since you don’t seem to be intent on fixing the vast gap between our services. Considering that you are the face of Sony on the PS Plus blog, and should be spinning all sorts of PR to make Sony look good, you should be all over this.

Plus, as a whole, is doing incredibly well. No other gaming company has a service like this, and it’s being recognized as such (http://www.destructoid.com/plus-points-sony-s-ps-plus-humiliates-the-game-industry-243470.phtml) Since gaming was a thing, there have always been differences in what regions get what content. When I was young, it was not getting great Japanese RPGs coming to US. That said, we strive to deliver great content throughout the year, and you’ll see plenty of great PS3 Full Games in Plus throughout the year. Don’t let one update inform your outlook on the Plus program as a whole. If you paid for 3 months, or even 1 year, I’m more than confident you’ll get your money’s worth.

People who paid a subscription that is similar to another region will expect the same value as another region. Their argument completely holds water as it is the same as two regions of shareholders in a company. If one region got higher dividends than the other, despite the same cost for shares, there will be major issues.

This is what is happening here, a vast and widening gap in quality between the two regions which even yourself cannot debate. All complaints, regardless of how ridiculous, are still valid simply because it’s a consumer’s right to complain and maximize the value he gets for the investment he made.

As for you, since you’re not Sony, why are you being affected by this? How is your posting making any difference at all? Complainers post in the hopes that their many complaints will eventually be heard by Sony’s ears. The minority are people like yourself who come on and thank Sony while at the same time bashing the complainers. To me this seems like the only motivation you might have is to pat your ego and tell yourself that you’re better than some demographic because you don’t feel “entitled”. Is this the case?